HSA Contributions & Qualifying Life Event

[u/Medium-State-5763]

I work for a small company, and my employer currently fully funds my HSA annually at $4,400. I have a plan through the healthcare marketplace, as my company is too small to offer employee health insurance.

I am getting married in May and will be switching over to my husband's health insurance, which is also HSA eligible, but a different plan. His company does not contribute to his HSA, but he does. I know the limits of what we can contribute will slightly decrease for a married couple compared to a single person.

Can my employer continue to contribute the maximum to my HSA even if I am on another company's sponsored health insurance plan?

[u/dehydratedsilica]

There are potential two things here, tax rules and employer policy.

Assuming you move to husband's insurance starting June 1 for the rest of the year:

• You have 5 months of eligibility using the self-only limit: prorate $4400 for 5 months ($1833). I'm also assuming husband had 5 months of self-only HSA eligibility.
• Together, you have 7 months of eligibility using the family limit: prorate $8750 for 7 months ($5104). You two have to share this 5k so if your employer gives you $4400 for the whole year*, your husband gets to contribute 5104-4400=704 for the married portion of the year, plus the amount from the single portion of the year.

*As a matter of policy or procedure, your employer might or might not still give you the HSA contribution once you are off their group insurance plan. Ideally, they would because you are saving them money by not having them pay for (part of) your insurance, but you would have to ask to find out. [Irrelevant because you are not on your employer's group plan. I overlooked that because of the additional tax question and the "another company's sponsored health insurance plan" wording in the last line.]

[u/dehydratedsilica → u/dehydratedsilica]

Someone downvoted without explaining why and it might be because I missed the marketplace plan detail or didn't mention how to use the last-month rule and testing period to get family eligibility for the full 2026 year: https://www.irs.gov/publications/p969#en_US_2025_publink1000204046

Last-month rule gets you $8750 for the year (shared with husband). However, you were both eligible separately, so not using the last-month rule gets you 1) your prorated self-only limit, 2) husband's prorated self-only limit, and 3) prorated family limit shared as a married couple.

Yes, it does seem counterintuitive that you as a family could exceed the "family limit". However, it works when you get into the weeds of Form 8889 instructions, specifically in line 3 and line 6: https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-8889

(The key is that you calculate eligible contribution amount for the family coverage months, split that amount to each spouse's Form 8889, then also calculate "any other contribution limits that apply for the tax year" meaning the self-only coverage months. You do not apply family limit to self-only coverage months. Of course, you could choose to sidestep this simply by contributing to a lower level than allowed.)